Undergraduate Academics 

Petroleum engineers are trained to design systems that allow safe and economic access to the earth’s subsurface.  Although careers are often in the petroleum industry, petroleum engineering graduates increasing work in different applications, including subsurface storage of carbon dioxide (to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions), geothermal energy, solution mining, and underground disposal of fluids, and groundwater hydrology.

Professional courses include drilling and production, well design, reservoir engineering, petrophysics, well logging, fluid properties, economics, and data analysis, and simulation. These courses are built on basic coursework in calculus, chemistry, physics, geology, and the engineering sciences. You should prepare yourself in high school by taking college preparatory courses in math and sciences.

The department is active in obtaining summer employment in the petroleum industry for its students. The department also strongly recommends that its students join and participate, as student members, in the Society of Petroleum Engineers and take the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination during their senior year as preparation for licensure as a professional engineer.

The nationally ranked Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering at LSU has alumni throughout the world working for major companies, small independent companies, government agencies, and as independent consultants.

The petroleum engineering program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://abet.org

Why study Petroleum Engineering at LSU?

  • Expert Faculty: LSU Petroleum Engineering graduates are known for being well trained to solve real-world industry problems. They learn from world-class faculty who average seven years industry experience.
  • Hands on: The LSU curriculum includes five hands-on laboratories within the Department, two of which are offered at the field-scale PERTT Lab, described below.
  • CCUS Concentration: LSU Petroleum Engineering is the first department to offer a concentration in Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage – a rapidly growing field that is part of the global energy transition.
  • PERTT Lab: The Petroleum Engineering Research, Training & Testing Laboratory (PERTT Lab) is a one-of-a-kind facility with six wellbores and the necessary industrial equipment to operate them in a controlled field scale facility. Students test their well-control training on real equipment once they have mastered the techniques on computer simulators. LSU students can also apply to the PERTT Lab’s Student Internship Program, to earn extra money while building the practical skills that are gained only through hands-on experience in this type of environment.
  • Modern Curriculum: In addition to the option of the CCUS Concentration, our curriculum includes a required track on programming, data visualization, and statistics, with an optional elective on data analytics for petroleum engineers, ensuring graduates are well prepared for this aspect of modern engineering.

Admission Requirements

Admission to the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering requires that a student be admissible to the College of Engineering. In addition to the College of Engineering requirements, students must meet the following GPA requirements at the time of application for admission:

  • A minimum 2.8 GPA in all courses that apply to the petroleum engineering degree.

Transferring students admitted to LSU may apply to the Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering when they apply to the College of Engineering. Students who are denied admission to the department may reapply for admission in a subsequent semester.